Whatever the nutritional potential of a food, its contribution is non-existent if it does not pass the test of absorption. Those nutrients that have not been transferred through the intestinal mucosal cell to enter the circulation have, for all nutritional intent and purpose, never been eaten. The variety of nutrients from the organism’s environment that have been made available by absorption must be transported through the circulatory system to the aqueous microenvironment of the cells. There they serve their ultimate purpose: “participation in the metabolic activities in the cells on which the life of the total organism depends.”

Minerals that depend on adequate stomach acid to enhance intraluminal absorption in the small intestines:

Chromium

Copper

Iron

Magnesium

Manganese

Molybdenum

Selenium (selenite form is not pH dependent)

Zinc

Insofar as minerals in the diet are often bound to proteins, complexed with organic molecules in food, or otherwise embedded in the matrix of foodstuffs, the mechanic processes of mastication, dissolution, dispersion, and often digestion are important preparative steps to absorption. Moreover, at the conclusion of the aforementioned reductive processes, minerals generally emerge in the intestinal lumen as charged ions, eg, Fe++, Zn++, PO4–, SeO3–.

Excessive alkalinization later in the small intestines reduces the solubility of certain minerals and impedes their absorption. We have observed that liquid minerals are more bio-available than solid forms.